Nothing More
by Only Some Stardust
Summary: "..." he said.
1. Means

_Nothing More_

Character: Red (protagonist from the games, and the one you fight at the very end of gold/silver/crystal.) They pretty much never speak in the games, but if you squint they have a personality; they never back down from a challenge, and they don't give in to bullies. I think I don't need to say any more. I think everyone has a different Red, since everyone plays the game a bit different, but, there is something rather personal about the fellow. His defeat at the end always seemed tragic, since he just... disappeared without a trace. And he was /you/. I always thought there should be sequel or something where you can play as him again, but, alas, that would be hard to make work and it never ever happened.

I felt like he deserved something a little more. Even if it is just a little. Because unlike us, he could never hit 'reset'. Just grind to a hundred.

A note on pikachu, I know he was supposed to fly with balloons and surf with a board... but my interpretation is more fun. This story is just for my amusement. Thank you for tolerating it.

,

* * *

He had defeated legends, gyms and elite champions, had seen all there was to see of Kanto and Johto. He had single handed defeated the rocket gang, who had tried to kill him more than once, and had raised his team of six devotedly. He had caught every single damn pokemon he had encountered, evolved and released most of them, simply to fill that silly pokedex for Oak. He was, he knew, a softy when it came to helping people.

It had not been enough.

He did not do anything so dramatic as sinking to his knees, or yelling, but simply glanced at the impetuous runt who wore gold and silver so flashily and proudly. His pikachu lay, the last to go, silent and crushed upon the ground. Although Red had in his time accumulate a fortune, he saw no challenge in spamming revives and had none left on him.

He had faced defeat before, but this was different. In that moment, he looked in that trainers eyes, and decided it would be the last he ever saw of them, and turned, picking up his yellow, frail looking mouse and walking away through the snow. He did not look back. He never did. They were younger, less experienced. Time spent training would not make up for that; they could simply train just as much, and keep their edge over him.

What more was there to do? With a forlorn smile, he wondered that about the trainer behind him as well about himself. He knew that Blue had taken over Giovanni's gym. That trainer must have defeated his old rival. His rival had always been seemingly ahead of him, but hadn't known when to quit until the very end. They knew better now. That much was obvious, because they had never seen each other since the league.

Red knew when he had lost. He could not defeat this trainer. Not now, anyway. Some trainers might have said there was one very obvious thing he could do, evolve his pikachu, but they were kindred spirits, and Red could never do that. Pikachu, like himself, enjoyed the raw challenge of being a weaker being out against the mightier world, and succeeding or failing simply as them-self. There was no where else to go for him, except... his eyes widened. The mystery dungeon.

Then he remembered it had collapsed in from his battle with... that thing, that twisted mew. He hadn't understood the creature, back then, why it chose to hide away in a cave. Until, of course, he'd done just about the exact same thing, hiding away in a desolate mountain himself. And now he had been defeated, just as the same. They were similar creatures. Each, powerful, at their peak, but the irony being that there was someone, something, always better out there. He had let it go... even with a master ball; he disliked such a cheap victory as that forced servitude. Perhaps they could meet again. The only flare of jealousy he had ever felt came then, as he remembered the master balls his challenger had, the legends they'd had, with the thought that they might encounter the mew first and take it for themselves.

Nameless again, he climbed down, and set off for unknown horizons. Literately, he went off the map, heading north into the mountainous and totally uncharted land. And then, if that did not work, south, then west, then east on till the end of the world, on, and on. He would seek out challenge, until his very bones crumbled.

In his arms, the pikachu stirred.

.

* * *

.

For years, he never saw another human being. Sometimes, he did not even see a pokemon for days, so inhospitable were some parts. Red was a formidable being in and of himself, and scavenged for his own food and cared and healed up his own pokemon; even if they were all fainted, which was a rare occasion indeed, he always managed to avoid fatal trouble. Outside the league, he saw no reason to pay attention to regulations, and kept extra pokemon with him, many that were technically considered wild, a chansey among them; most sticking around only temporarily, desiring to challenge him. His pokeballs, rusted and old, were used mainly as carrying devices for pokemon that could not stand the current environment, needed stasis and safe rest from the cold, or were physically incapable of moving with him otherwise, such as if he was up in the air. Many of his pokemon had grown used to being out as Pikachu was. They were his companionship.

It was hard to breath in high altitudes, or survive on little water in a desert, or go without food for days crossing ocean massively blue and featureless, but he had adapted. He had been hardy from an early age.

He drilled, and worked, and ironically, his favorite pokemon was far too powerful now. He had to intentionally lessen his, their strength if they wanted an actual resemblance of a challenge most of the time. There was something wrong about a pikachu who flew and surfed, beckoning water and air to him with ease.

When he felt his fuzzy chin for the first time, it startled him. He had forgotten men grew beards. But what frightened him most was how young still he looked. Too young. And yet he didn't recognize himself anymore.

A rattata approached, young, tiny, weak. It made him smile and stand up.

A real challenger. He had always found rattata annoying in his early days. Now he found their tenacity electrifying, and it was quite bold of this one to come all this way to meet him. But his friend, Pikachu, was training, concentrating intently on keeping lifted up a rock many times their weight, so he held up a finger in a shushing motion. When it continued to approach, he boldly shot out a hand and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and lifted it up, and walked some distance away before dropping it.

'Ready?' he glanced at it sharply, hand going to a ball at his side just like old times, purely out of habit. 'Go!' he waved his hand down.

The rattata bounced forward towards good old Venusaur, who snorted good naturedly and sent out spores of paralyzing powder. Holding its breath, it evaded them and knocked a blow against the green giant, to whom it didn't even tickle. Venusaur bumped against them with a lazy yet powerful nudge of the head, crushing them against a rock. The fiesty rat endured the treatment, scampering out and then retaliating with a blow that sent Venusaur literately soaring through the air and crashing against the mountainside.

Red laughed, the first noise he'd made that week. "They should call you Fear." His voice was smooth, but the words were slightly garbled from lack of practice. He cleared his throat. "I think I'll move on from here. Any more stragglers following?"

'Fear' shook his or her head. Venusaur picked themselves dazedly, but then seemed to decide to take a nap right where they were.

_Good_, he made clear his thoughts upon his face, walking off toward Pikachu. She was at the peak, the pinnacle of her species, he mused, such that even her meager physical strength was incredibly impressive for her size. Heaving the rock, she put it down and ran to join him. With a glance between them, they could communicate so much. He could tell she felt well today, and was eager to get moving again to some place more exciting.

She was in luck, if all went well. He had heard of a place with terrible weather where powerful pokemon were said to live, deep in a jungle layered with canyons.

.

* * *

.

This time, just a few pokemon opted to come with him. That was the way it was, sometimes. Wrapping his arms around his pikachu, he watched them bunch up their legs, then soar through the air from their great leap. It was truly astounding. The ground rapidly came up to greet them, and they hit harshly, rolling with the impact. That part was less fun.

The wind here rushed and blew unpredictably, but it was relatively warm and wet. They trudged through the mud towards a distant oasis that looked promising.

He stopped.

_They were here. _It had been so long since he'd seen that hulking purplish gray figure, that at first, both just gazed at each other across the distance, completely surprised, though immediately Red felt keen and happy that he might get a good battle. It (they were genderless), however, was angry. Once again, Mewtwo's privacy had been invaded, but more so, by a challenger it had previously failed to defeat. It hated that the most. A cruel creature born with a drive to destroy, it lashed out at him, grabbing hold of his mind.

And stopped, just as startled as him to come across something it did not expect. { _You were defeated. } _It spoke in his mind, quizzical, but not stopping, simply filing through his memories slower. He didn't care. It was interesting it could speak mentally, but he wasn't surprised. Rather, he just felt honored that he was probably the only person who had heard its real, spoken voice, that strange and off putting mewl.

_'Yes._' he answered it.

It saw the similarities, it saw the desire for _destruction, _for that was battling, plain and simple in the end, and shoved this realization down his throat.

{_You are waiting to die.} _It hissed in his brain. {_You were hoping for this battle to be your last the moment you came here, a glorious one, because you met someone better, and saw a glimpse of the end of your potential. You are useless._}

The retaliatory thought of '_So are you_ by _that logic_' sounded in his brain, although he would not have spoken it. However, it was not given a chance for silence, picked off from his brain like a lazy fly.

He was slammed against the ground, and was immediately defended by brave Pikachu going out in front. He heard a high pitched, mewled scream as all the energy of a thunderstorm crashed violently against his attacker, though it still stood firm, their burnt nerves stitching themselves rapidly back together. Their tail angrily lashed back and forth, before subsiding to the ground. It seemed they had learned something of the world, for now they were calming down.

Red gazed ungrudging, not judging. When they had first fought, they had been matched, perfectly even. He admired Mewtwo as an equal, even if they were not yet ready to see it that way.

The cat-like clone twitched at that thought. He smiled, wondering what _they _were thinking..

_{There must be something more. More than destroy, or be destroyed, and working together for such goals, as I know you do.}_

"There is, though I've mostly forgotten it." Red glanced down at the cities far distant. "I wouldn't know how to fit in if I tried. It would seem so... mediocre after this, just living the simple life. I can't see myself as useful there."

That could have been all of them speaking, there.

{_We are both useless. Created as ideals, you by your league, I by my scientists.}_

_Had a lot of time to think on this, then? Sounds rehearsed.  
_

_{Much, far too much.}_

A pause.

{_A shame to have so much power for no use, no reason. We could take over the world. That boy would not be able to stop us together. Nor the league.}_

Red laughed. Now that was ludicrous, although the thought hung in his head for a moment. For a painful moment, he remembered Giovanni calling him naive. Not just for treating his pokemon with such care, which he refused to think was a bad idea, but for fighting the rockets with such abhorrence in his eyes. Not just thieves, they'd wanted to rule the world with pokemon.

No, there was no point in ruling for the sake of ruling... But... he pondered the problem before them over in his head.

Aha.

"One who can destroy, can also create." he decided. "Maybe the world could use us..."

He felt his own feelings of doubt thrown back at him. Sometimes, he rather disliked psychics. They were difficult to argue with. A part of him loved it. He didn't have to speak lengthily around them to get to the point.

Standing up, he went to explore the world with new eyes again.


	2. Ends

It was a oneshot, and the previous part can stand alone, but here is some more. It was originally too long for my liking so I cut it and rewrote it. This next part is inspired by the colors in the gameboy Blue game. Everything was... blue. And the bit after that is to clear up some of the vagueness of, create what, exactly? What can you do with all that power?

* * *

Words were so useless, sometimes. Know someone long enough, and you can finish their sentences at times before they even begin. But Red had a gift in that, even with total strangers, he barely had to speak for them to understand what he wanted. Maybe that was because he never wanted for anything too unusual, or for much at all.

Still, as he felt the curiosity in the other brimming, he felt annoyed. _Speak up already. I know you want to comment on it, you've been broadcasting it for awhile._

_{_It's ironic. You're colorblind.} Mew(two) spoke without moving his mouth.

Only in one eye. The colors were a bit dull.

{You can't see the color red in either eye.} they pointed out.

It was a boring color. Who would want to?

* * *

He felt fainthearted as he went to near civilization for the first time in a very long time, like some wild untamed creature that approached with fear, rather than a man himself that belonged there. Continually, he expected for people to stare and jeer at him as he walked through town, to smell his fear, or to claim him an imposter. His clothes were old, though he'd taken decent care of them, (err, the ones that were left, that was. The other ones were totally ruined, torn to shreds by the environment or battles) having learned to sew quite some time ago. But no one even glanced at him. Gone were the days where every trainer knew his face and would mob him for a battle instantly.

Going into a building, he couldn't help but noticed how strange things looked. There had been a fashion renovation, apparently, because pokemon centers and marts didn't have their names as a bold sign on top of them anymore. He examined products on the shelves, looking at produce and tinned cans of goods, cereals and candy bars. When was the last time he'd had candy? He had no idea. He selected a bar, paper, maps, and other basic supplies and went to the cash register, and put down some cash.

The shop keeper looked down at it in surprise. "Haven't seen this currency in a long time. I thought it was all circulated out for the new stuff after that big money and item duplication scandal." He had no idea what they were talking about. "You must have been living under a rock or something. Still, I'll accept it. I have a cousin who has a thing for collecting old mementos, stamps and things."

The shop keeper paused, taking in their old clothes, the pokeballs, and the ancient pokedex on his belt. "Say, you wouldn't be interested in a pokétech, would you? They're all the rage these days. If you've been holding out on getting one because of the item glitch that registers you as having more items than you do if you get a pokemon caught and have it automatically register with an unknown number on the pokedex, they fixed that. Not that there are that many undiscovered pokemon lurking around anymore," the man smirked. "but one gets a hefty fine for hacking."

This he understood. He balked at the idea of having a device linked to his pokedex that would automatically try to figure out what pokemon he did and didn't have that connected to a computer. He'd been disobeying the six pokemon rule for awhile now, and unlike others he had in fact met pokemon with no numbers he wasn't eager to share with anyone, even if it was only Bill or Professor Oak looking at the computer that output the other end of the data. He'd completed the stupid pokedex once; it wasn't his fault there turned out to be more pokemon than everyone thought there was. Now he wanted his privacy.

Seeing him look unconvinced, the other tried harder. "It has a phone built in, and a radar that can help track pokemon down you've already encountered, zoom-in map that shows your location, and a clock."

No. Phone? People could call him? The device would know his location? He shook his head no.

Of course… It wasn't like he actually needed to hide himself away like a nidoran. It was just habit. Red was never terribly social or talkative towards other human beings. Although… he would force himself to change that, if he had to. Change, wasn't that what he was trying to do right now?

Walking outside to a bench, he began to get out the maps and scribble on them, correcting them for mistakes, adding climate notes, and thinking carefully where to go next.

.-

He was surprised. Perhaps he should not have been but, there they were, his challenger's bright visage under the headline 'CHAMPION ETHAN GOLD DEFEATED.' They had been defeated by another, a girl named Kris Crystal. A later article had him re-defeating her and taking his old place as champion. In addition, there was news bustling about other regions and their leagues and champions.

{You made a mistake, you assumed Gold would think the same way you do.}

Red paused. Not for the first time, he pondered why Mew(two) had not sought another, more powerful human than himself, like Gold, who had at the time been undefeated and had defeated Red himself.

{Do not believe I did not think about it. I examined his mind as well as Lance, Blue, and those you may not have heard of; Silver de'Giovanni, Brendan Birch, Marina Sapphire, Dawn Diamond, Champion Wallace, Steven…. Palmer and his son Barry.} There was telepathic shudder at the last part, which confused Red, but he would not pry if Mew did not want him to. Although, such a thought was rather useless, as he was talking to a mind reader here. {Indeed.} Smugness. {Trawling through their hyper active minds was like going into a mind field of idiocy.} Why, Mew! I had no idea you were into metaphors. {Don't go into sarcasm. It doesn't work for you. I much prefer you silent.}

It wasn't like he could help thinking, he internally shrugged. This was probably the longest conversation he'd ever had, ever, simply because it skipped the speaking part. Unless you counted the monologues people had at him.

{Some of them were far more adverse than you to having their minds read. Your casual acceptance of it is quite unusual, actually.}

…

{No. I didn't talk them up in their heads. However, some had a slight psychic sensitivity and thought they felt an intruder, or simply had experience enough to form an opinion one way or another.}

…

{Dark types did prove difficult when they were around, due to their aura, but it was no match for MY skills.}

…?

Embarrassment. {Yes, I often waited until they went back into their pokeballs. Happy? Now, to summarize, few had as much drive as you. Others did, but for other reasons were unpalatable.} An image of a red haired young man.

!

{Yes, it is his son. I was quite tempted to kill him, but had better things to do. Continuing, I found that many had experience with legendaries before. Universally, they either tried to catch them for their own uses, or tried to preserve the 'world order'. None of them had half as entertaining, or dramatic a thought, as you did.}

Shrug.

{You are insufferable. I went through all that effort putting thoughts in your brain slowly and in a manner you can understand, and you don't even care.}

Excitement!

{Oooh, that other method, it's quite painful, I assure you. Still want to try?}

_Yes._  
Thousands of thoughts bombarded his brain instantly. Next thing he knew, he was sprawling on the ground, dazed and rubbing his head. Pikachu, who had been keeping a distance and looking out for danger on the perimeter (an old habit) instantly rushed to his aid, glancing around in confusion as to where the attacker was. He patted her on the shoulder comfortingly, assuring everything was alright, and let out a laugh.

Woozy, he picked himself up, incomprehensible as well as astonishingly brilliant and diverse notions running through his head, some so vivid he hallucinated flashes of things he'd never seen before. He felt quite giddy, however, even if some of the input thoughts were horribly negative-feeling in nature. Some bits were just pure emotion. Mew could feel quite a lot as well as think. Not that he had before any opinion different. He had input everything at once, ceasing to pretend to emulate a normal conversation; the psychic was capable of so much more than giving off one word at a time.

Huh. One of his hallucinations was getting uncomfortably persistent, apparently. Although, why Mew would put the thought in his head of them… he gripped his head, a migraine coming on, as Blue, his old rival, flew down to the Viridian Gym on their pidgeot. They were undoing the lock on their gym when Pidgeot turned and gave a shrill cry at the sight of Red, puffing up feathers. Pidgeot still remembered him unfondly, apparently from all the times he'd had it zapped into unconsciousness.

Blue turned his head, and his eyes widened slightly in shock, seeing Red leaning against a fence clutching his head with a concerned Pikachu at his side, tugging on his sleeves.

"I never thought I would see you again." was the cold greeting he heard. Red grinned and gave a thumbs up. His hallucination had the guy's voice and character down pat. Blue gave a look of confusion at the other's cheerfulness. "What's wrong with you? Are you drunk?"

He shook his head and stumbled forward, falling on to the ground before Blue and picking himself up wobbly. He gave a wave, then turned to leave. Blue grabbed his arm, and Red froze. That certainly felt quite real. He glanced back at them, and was surprised by the look of concern.

Blue looked so much older, now. They turned and pulled him along, opening the door of the gym and walking inside, then forcing him to sit.

"We thought you were dead. I was quite disappointed to hear Gold beat you, and that you ran off like a coward." Blue had never been exactly nice in his wording about anything, but was surprisingly tender now as he looked for injuries. "But I started to wonder when you didn't reappear anywhere on the map for years. Rumors came in about a man in the arctic, and a ship getting rescued in the middle of the ocean far from land, and of battles in the very sky with a flying pikachu. You must be in pretty horrible shape to have returned here." To see Blue again, the context was. But the irony was that had never been his intention. His old rival probably thought he had been badly injured from the way he was stumbling about, and must have had a near heart attack wondering what could have injured Red so much that he would come begging for help.

Red started giggling and laughing. He couldn't help it. Mew had a very wicked sense of humor, and he was starting to register some of the jokes they'd been thinking on. He opened his mouth, and a mash of words, tones and accents poured out, his voice itself raw from disuse. "'."

Blue looked horrified. "What?" Then he narrowed his eyes. "Alakazam, go." It was an order.

Glowing eyes approached from the dark, as the familiar brown horned pokemon came, grasping two spoons. Perhaps it was because he knew what to look for now, but he felt the blunt intrusion of the other upon his mind. It felt crude as the other looked for damage on his mind. An angry force bubbled protectively, and without any visible warning Alakazam was suddenly thrown across the room. Blue's already uncertain expression did not change much, but the other did glance about, searching for a hostile force. They settled on Pikachu.

"Did it do that? Some new attack your Pikachu has learned?" they queried.

Red shook his head, and held up a hand, feeling a bit better now. "Look, it's nothing. Accident." he rasped out.

He got the distinctive feeling that his talking, normally, was unnerving Blue more than anything else had. He tried to remember how often he'd exchanged more than two words to them… or if he had ever spoken to them at all.

Then the unnerved look turned to anger. "Why are you here?"

"Needed books, maps. 'Membered Viridian had a nice book selection because of the school here." A pause as he figured out how to say the absolute minimum needed. "Should check up on my bank account. Was going to set up a new one."

"You were going to disappear again, only into civilization instead of the wilderness." Blue was incredulous. "Were you going to just set yourself up as a different person? Not even bother with contact? Your mother thinks you are dead, for crying out loud."

"I have a mother?" he muttered, surprised to faintly remember a sweet, loving face.

"Do you have-" Blue gaped. "Being out in the wilderness has addled your brain, apparently, although you always were an idiot. What did you think, that you sprang out of the ground?"

Red shrugged. He'd just forgotten. Standing up, he moved to leave. As Blue moved to grab his arm again, he shot an intense stare. As he did, so did Pikachu.

Blue lowered his own hand, reluctantly backing down. "Where are you going? What was that thing that attacked Alakazam?" A very possessive purple cat, apparently. "What do you plan to do?"

He hadn't known Blue cared so much. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to face Arceus." A final battle. That thought of the strange mew's appealed far too much, even if it meant temporarily giving up his plans. He wasn't too eager to start on them, anyway. Creating... was very difficult. He was much better at destruction.

"The God? You are completely bonkers! You'll be killed, even if that Sinnoh figment of legend does exist!"

Blue didn't know legends had a way of being far too real. Red left without a word.

Sure you want to do this? He glanced up at Mew, who hovered silently with him. Below, they watched a trio of legendaries battle against some weird man named Cyrus, along with two trainers, one of them he recognized from Mew's information dump as Dawn Diamond, the other as Lucas Pearl. The champion Cynthia was also there.

{Yes.} Very emphatic. Alright then. He watched to see if he needed to step in against this Cyrus fellow. He hadn't been planning on him being here, or the others. Just as it looked like things were going badly, a huge, strange creature crashed out of a great swirling hole in the sky, scooped the man up, and crawled back in. That was… unexpected. Deux es machina, much?

Still, it was lucky for them in the end, as the two trainers hopped straight in after. Now was their chance to blow the azure flute they had constructed undisturbed. Red walked into spear pillar. Cynthia glanced at him sharply. "Who are you?" she demanded, ignoring Mew, which was a bit of a feat. If he had been her, he'd have looked at the pokemon first. She must have assumed he was Mew's trainer.

For some reason, he felt a touch of amusement from the other whenever he thought Mew's name. He didn't know why. It was what they were, right? Ignoring Cynthia, he blew.

"That's… that's the Azure Flute!" she recognized it with fear. "You fool." She enlarged a pokeball, preparing to fight him. It refused to open for her, no matter how many times she clicked. Scrutinizing his features, her eyes narrowed. "I recognize you now. You are the old Kanto champion. Perhaps Arceus will accept your challenge." She stepped aside.

Stairs started to form, materializing out of nothing, leading up to the sky. Pikachu bounced up them, excited and eager, Red walked, and so did Mew, conserving energy as much as possible. They entered into a temple in the sky, the hall of origin. Red was not terribly religious. He didn't think Arceus had created the whole universe, but he did think the pokemon had created the Sinnoh region. That was his primary reason for his interest, because he had been planning… to do the exact same thing.

An animalistic roar knocked him off his feet. Red suddenly found himself looking into the small eyes of a great white deer-like being, who had come upon him in an instant. He hadn't even had a chance to register their presence before. At that same moment, the air was alight with lightning and tremendous, dark energy, Mew and Pikachu alike slamming force into what could only be Arceus, making it step back from Red angrily. Red scrambled to his feet, and spoke.

"You want it one at a time, you play by my rules." Red demanded. "Keep off me." He was rather surprised Arceus didn't speak. He supposed they weren't psychic, then. Or perhaps they couldn't be bothered to learn human language.

Arceus snorted, and charged right at him, immediately making it clear it was by Arceus's rules and Arceus's alone that they would be playing by. Fine then. It wasn't the first time a pokemon had tried to stop the battle by finishing him off or destroying his pokeballs. Of course, little did they know Pikachu and Mew wanted to see this fight through possibly even more than he did.

The battle raged with blinding speed. Rarely had he seen Pikachu move so fast; she was just a blur. Even then, he was so in tune with her he knew every action she was going to do, and she knew every one he wanted her to do, As one of Mew's barriers were shredded with a dark type attack, the powerful pokemon was forced to move around as well, though they were always loathe to expend extra energy on unnecessary movement. He did little or nothing to protect Red from Arceus, instead encouraging the beast to challenge him, ruthlessly trying to destroy it. Pikachu, however, spent every moment ensuring Red's safety from the literal god. The little electric mouse was massively powerful, and in one of her blows exploded out a piece of wall and almost went tumbling out into the sky. Although electric in nature, air and water beckoned to her call with unnatural ease, and Red was soon soaked.

Despite their sheer strength, many of their blows seemed to do little to Arceus. Red encouraged Pikachu to experiment with different types, and for Mew to change the energies of his balls and try a physical attack once. It still did not work. The strange rings glowed different colors, and it was as if it was assuming different types to which their attacks were weak against. Naturally, Red's mind drew up a strategy rapidly. For Mew, he didn't need to even speak it. For Pikachu, he merely needed a quick gesture. He found many pokemon responded better to gestures than words. They would try differently matched types at the same time. Mew with buildup, psychic, Pikachu, fighting with as little warning as possible. If he was right…

Aha! It worked beautifully. Arceus slammed backwards from Pikachu's special punch, and became dizzied and confused. Its dark rings changed color, and Mew immediately used shadow ball, gambling on the change to be to the psychic typing. It worked. The rings then became their normal, golden coloring, and Pikachu used a fighting type move again. However, it rapidly changed from normal to ghost, and Pikachu's move went straight through. Dang, the other was catching on.

The battle was furious. It was close. Yet, if Red felt truly threatened, he could always go for his pokeballs and call in reinforcements… Still, two (technically three, as Red gave the two an advantage in that he was undistracted and could think up as many strategies as he liked) on one was unfair enough as it was, and he didn't like the idea of retreating. He also felt his other pokemon simply weren't fast enough to dodge the sheer, destructive moves of every element Arceus chose, though he thought Charizard might be able to survive awhile. He could use them for, if worst came to worst, carrying the other two to safety while Red stayed behind to distract Arceus for a few moments.

{Don't you dare.} Mew muttered in his mind. {I don't need you to sacrifice your life for me. I can do this! I will not lose again!} Their eyes glowed, and power brimmed, lashing outward throughout the whole room, narrowly avoiding Pikachu, who grabbed Red as the floor beneath him began to disintegrate.

Arceus screamed, and Mew and Arceus's power clashed terribly, sending off a blinding arc of light that must have stretched for miles around. The white deity's dark power, however, sent Mew spiraling and falling in pain. They hovered just in time for a second vicious dark type attack, and then another, and another. Red felt stunned, and knew Mew couldn't take much more of this. But the deity would only be so angry if it were truly injured right now. It was ignoring him for a moment, and that would be its mistake.

A storm pooled around them.

"Pikachu. Thunder." Red uttered.

The mouse obliged. At light's speed, a great bolt struck through her and sent the god, crippled and paralyzed, crumbling to the ground. The ground was very, very far away. They went after it, certain of victory.

A large smoking crater greeted them, and people stared as Red landed. He saw Dawn and Lucas emerge from spear pillar themselves and rush down, confused and tired from their own battles. "What's going on? How is this possible? Is that… Arceus?"

Damn. He didn't want an incident, but that was impossible if they realized he was attacking their god, which, unlike him, they thought created the whole entire universe. {Still, you can keep them still for awhile with fear.} He heard Mew smirk in his skull, and agreed it would have to do.

"Arceus. It was a pleasure fighting you." He was unused to pleasantries, but, he wanted to make it clear he had fought mostly just to fight. "Might you mind telling me how it was you created an entire region? I have some ideas, and wasn't going to start from scratch, but I wouldn't mind hearing some tips from an actual master of it." he chuckled.

The deer-like pokemon screamed rage at him. He got the feeling it was swearing at him. They hadn't really gotten off to a good start, but… to be fair, it did attack him first, Red thought guiltily.

"Not planning on telling? That's alright then. It was fun, I'll be leaving now." he turned, feeling ecstatic for the first time in a long time, a rush in his limbs making him feel like he could run a marathon. He grabbed his exhausted Pikachu, who only had so much power in her tiny frame, and started to walk off.

Immediately, people mobbed him. "What was that?" "How? How could you?" "Why did you do that? You monster."

He felt confused, and shrugged. It was a pokemon. He liked to challenge pokemon. End of story. It wasn't like they'd die.

Lucas Pearl glared at him. The hypocrite, he'd battled plenty of pokemon and injured them before, that much was obvious by their full six-pokeball belt. Dawn Diamond was busy spraying potions on Arceus. Oh, potions. He'd completely forgotten about those. He'd been brewing his own substitutes for awhile now… "I challenge you to a battle."

Now that he hadn't heard in awhile. Still, he'd never to date turned down a challenge, even though he could have pointed out they both had just gone through horrid battles themselves. The difference was, though… Red still had five fresh pokemon, Mew not really belonging to him. His pokeball went to his belt to release either Charizard or Venusaur. Maybe Snorlax. They could use a good battle.

Lucas frowned. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

He shrugged. Probably not. He decided to be nice, and enlarged Charizard's ball and sent them out. The great red dragon roared, eying the destruction with smug satisfaction, and only feeling somewhat disappointed they weren't the cause of it. Heh, he pondered if he could let them take the entire battle on by themselves, and started to turn to walk off. They could always fly back to him later, or he could go to retrieve them.

"Hey, where are you going?" shouted Dawn. "He just challenged you to a battle! You can't just send a pokemon out and walk off."

"…Dawn, quiet. There's something weird about this pokemon. It doesn't look tired at all." Lucas muttered nervously. "I think it hasn't fought yet. I'll have to hope my Empoleon can knock it out in one or two hits." He enlarged a ball, and sent out a water bird pokemon Red didn't recognize. He stopped, simply to look at it for a moment. It was on very low health, he judged. He didn't need a special poketech app device to tell that much. "Bubblebeam!"

Charizard slammed it to the ground, whirled it around by an arm and flung it through the air, roaring laughter when the bubbles hit it. "Brine!"

{He is hoping the previous move brought it down to half health. If so, the next move will do even more damage.}

He doesn't know Charizard very well then. Red shook his head, watching a flamethrower met water. The water turned to steam and splashed on Charizard, but some fire reached and sizzled on the penguin pokemon as well. It gave a cry and fell to the ground, fainted. The boy sent another, fresher pokemon, and watched as it too fell down to a single blow.

Alright, he'd had enough of this. He turned around and intended to keep on walking. People kept a distance, uncertain of him, fearful. He wasn't used to that. No one had been scared of Red before. It made him feel bad.

As he turned his back, Arceus stood up, furious.

{Look out!} "MWEE MEW!" Came an indignant, startled cry, as Mew launched himself towards Pikachu and Red and sent up a barrier around them, just in time. The world lurched and spun, and Red felt faint, like… like he was being written out of very existence. All he could see was Arceus, kneeling on one knee, then fainting.

Then it stopped.

He couldn't see Arceus anymore. Not even Sinnoh, in fact. Colors returned slowly, and the world sprang around them, they were in a cornfield. For the second time in his life, he saw Mew, unconscious. And Pikachu… Oh god, where was Pikachu? He sat up abruptly, looking around. His pokeballs were fading, then blinked out of existence entirely. They were gone, vanished.

Dead?

Oh god. Red had really messed up with something he shouldn't have, this time. He had wanted to expand his limits, and find them, challenge them, and by hell, he had found the end, and escaped barely with his own time line and existence in tact!

Or had he? Glancing up at a nearby sign, he found himself near Pallet Town. Not the Pallet Town he knew, though. The roads were bigger, longer, dustier, and there were far more houses. It was more like an actual town now. Grabbing Mew and hauling the heavy being on to his shoulder, he walked towards the bush and laid down, hiding them there.

He wondered if Mew would ever wake up, he thought softly, closing his eyes despairingly. To die in battle, it was what the other would have wanted. It didn't make it less painful. Red should have died too, with Pikachu. His survival was a mockery.

Still hidden, a noise caught his attention on the road. A car was driving down it. It looked like… Blue! But much younger. And with a team of pretty girls at his side, he scowled. He had never known the other to be misogynistic or dress chasing, although he didn't actually know the other that well come to think of it. They were talking loudly.

"Oh Gary, we're so sad for you that you lost to Ash Ketchum!"

"He stinks! You should have won!"

…Ash?

"Although his pikachu is quite adorable! Mhm!"

Pikachu? Perhaps… This Ash was his counterpart, the one meant to write over him. He wondered why it hadn't worked. Perhaps Mew's barrier had offered some resistance, or the changes were too great with what little strength Arceus had left. He could only hope the other pokemon didn't remember him, although, childishly, he would have enjoyed battling the beast yet again. Blue hit on the nail when he accused Red of being insane.

Mew stirred. Red felt great relief, and decided he could try risking traveling with the other, and picked them up, heading towards a pokemon center. Or, would that be too public? He frowned. It might take too long. Yet he couldn't dump the pokemon in the bushes and run to the mart real quick. He'd have to take them with him into the center and say they were his pokemon and have them registered, he sighed, preparing to face a very angry mew. He'd released them before that could happen the last time. No one alive had, officially until today, known about Mew.

The nurse was quite startled, seeing him, as were the other trainers waiting for their pokemon to be healed. "What kind of pokemon is that? What did you do to it?"

Nothing except be an idiot. "It's a rare one. He-" Red randomly assigned a gender. "needs help immediately, please, and as quickly as possible. It's possible what hurt him will be back."

The nurse nodded and got to work, before glancing at him. "Don't you have a pokeball you could put him in?"

He searched himself. He had absolutely nothing on him anymore except his clothes. "No, I lost it." Lost everything. Yet he did not let the despair get to him, or the shock. Not just yet. He couldn't even believe what was going on. Still thought that things might magically reverse themselves, and he would find his pokemon safe at his side again. Insanely hopeful, perhaps.

"We'll let you have one for free." she stated sympathetically, and handed him one. "You aren't the first trainer to lose all their stuff to a raticate attack, you know."

A raticate attack? As if he would ever-! But he simply nodded his head and took the ball. Paranoid, he checked it over to see what type it was, and the registration ID. It was an old one, it would not automatically suck Mew into a PC if it thought he had more than six pokemon… as well as having no trainer ID registered to the ball. It was the kind of ball someone not planning to train would use for a pet.

One thought of comfort came to him. Charizard might have survived. It hadn't been with him in the attack. Although, with something so reality affecting, he wondered if physical location really at all mattered.

There was something wrong with the healing in this new reality. It took longer. Apparently the high-tech quick healing apparatus of his time was gone, although a peek into another room revealed a lesser version still existed. Antsy, he snuck into Mew's room as soon as the nurse was out and sat in a chair, waiting.

He heard someone arrive through the front door. "Where is Mewtwo?" came a voice that made him freeze inside. Shit. Team Rocket was still at large here? And what was with 'Mewtwo?' They were a mew, they'd been born from one, after all… He'd thought of calling them Mewtwo once, but had abandoned it fairly quickly, only occasionally using it as the name the scientists had wanted to use. Mew was second to none. Quick, he looked through the drawers, searching for a healing potion stored away, and took one, not caring if it was stealing, and sprayed it on Mew. He closed the door.

The other stirred slowly, blinking. Great, now they could mend themselves back together…. Or not, he stared as they looked around in confusion.

{Where am I? Red… I remember you, and yet… I can't place when…}

Ah, crud. Mew, dammit, heal yourself. We've got trouble coming in at any minute. Team Rocket is searching for you- knock knock. "That's them. I could try stuffing you in here and hiding it." He pointed to the pokeball helpfully. "Although if they take it we'd be in trouble."

{I can't remember how to heal myself anymore.} Apologetic, a tone he wasn't used to hearing from them. That was alright, though. It seemed like Mew had almost split into two different individuals, and was lucky not to have disappeared from reality entirely. He had a right to feel messed up. {They are searching because they helped create me.}

…what?

{In this time line.} Mewtwo stood up, shaking themselves. {Although I never told you, I am truly a clone of mew, with some modifications to make up for gaps in the DNA sample. The diaries you read were intentionally ambiguous by the scientists.}

… Red glanced at the banging door. It sounded like they were trying to break it down now. Fantastic. Red picked up a pokeball off the shelves, and released the pokemon inside. A startled sandshrew looked up at him.

"When the intruders come in, throw sand in their faces." he asked it. Time to see if he still had his gift with pokemon. "They'll try to hurt everyone, but they can't so easily if they don't see."

It didn't know him, but turned with a frightened look. As the door busted down, it jumped, startled, then complied with Red's command, spewing dust, producing it quickly by rubbing against the floor with its claws. The disgruntled rocket grunt stepped back, rubbing their eyes. "Ugh! Venomoth, send them to sleep. Team One, I can't see so swell but I think we have our target. Calling for back up."

"Sandshrew, destroy her phone link and grab her belt!" Red commanded. The little pokemon looked uncertain, but Red's vigor was infectious, and it leaped to grab the two items, slashing at the woman's face. She threw up an arm and managed to defend her communications link, while enlarging a ball.

"Yes, I see the target quite clearly now. They are being defended by the same young man spotted bringing it in. Confirmed. Will do as requested, over." She looked at Red and smiled sweetly. "Now be a dear and give Mewtwo back to us. You see, we're his real owners, you just found him on accident."

{I disagree.} Mewtwo rose, disgruntled. {I have no master. But Red is my partner, and touch him now, and I will kill you.}

He glanced back. He didn't have to go -that- far!

Mewtwo disagreed, and rose a hand up. Immediately, the grunt started choking, rising into the air, feet dragging barely along the ground. {Call everyone off. Say it was a mistake. No tricks. I can read your mind.}

"Disregard that statement! Now! Target is not present here. Yes, I know what I said… It was an illusion, a ditto! The real Mewtwo is heading out of the center right now, hurry!"

She was lifted down. Red nodded his thanks, then stepped out. Sandshrew glanced at her, then him, and tried to follow. Red frowned. "You don't really belong to me. Are you really sure you want to come along?"

It nodded. Mewtwo moved slowly after, out the door. Looking about cautiously, the group moved towards the front of the center, and saw the rockets rushing outside and exclaiming furiously. "I can't see it anywhere!"

"Is there a back way?" he asked the nurse, who he still didn't know the name of. {It's Nurse Joy.} Mewtwo told him, to his embarrassment. Sometimes he wished the guy wouldn't read everyone's mind. It was kind of rude, even if Red didn't care personally.

"Yes, this way." she rushed to show him. He was unsure if he should trust her, but Mewtwo did not give any indication, so she must not have been maliciously-inclined. {And here I thought you disliked me reading minds. -smirk-} Only from a moral, privacy liking perspective. {Touché.}

Dang, the area was swarming with the villains. They must have come from the gym, if Giovanni was still running it. Why had his counterpart never stopped it?

{I feel better now. _They _will pay.}

Red didn't think that was such a fantastic idea.

{Red... You've been in my head, or rather, I've been in yours. Like you, I am far more vicious than my counterpart here, and that is saying something.} a dark purr rolled. {You know, one of the only things that stopped me when we first met was the fact you had a psychic helping guard your mind and keeping me from destroying you completely, and that I enjoyed a challenge. But you have nothing now. Given time, of course, you will become just as powerful as you were before, but, I can't help but remember the time you caught me, even if you changed your mind. There was no way of struggling, not from the Masterball. No escape, except mercy.}

Dread filled him. He realized he could not move his limbs, or his mouth. Mew was extremely vindictive and vengeful. They literately could not completely forget anything, which likely contributed.

{You are mine.}

In a moment, the gym was obliterated from where it stood, every molecule sent into chaos, every bond broken at their chemical link, the energy was b**linding**. The gangsters that rushed to the scene to stop him did not even have time to scream, as they were dealt with in a varied number of ways; some had their minds overwhelmed and crushed in an instant, others were physically crippled, some simply killed with a lovely little cellular offswitch. Mewtwo was powerful; he could do all this and let Red know exactly what he was doing at the exact same time. Why bother? Because he had always known every little petty thought everyone else had. It was only fitting.

Yet the thing that bothered him most was being forced to be still. Unable to act, he could dwell all to easily on the sudden loss of his friends, his practical family. Pikachu... he could not believe that she was gone. He just couldn't. Couldn't feel grief, even though he knew he should.

As others arrived at the scene, trainers, Mewtwo felt vindictive joy at using Red like a puppet, forcing him to walk and accept the 'challenges' as if he was the trainer. Red had always been far too good at pokemon battles, and could not stop thinking strategies even if he wanted to. Mew... he supposed he should stop thinking of them as that, if they were modified and not the same genetically, Mew went and plucked the very thoughts from his head, using him like a helpful second brain. Agatha? Too many part poisons. Her pure ghosts and darks? The fighting moves in Red's head, and Shadow Ball, dealt with those quickly and expertly.

There was something extremely guiltily joyful in him, when he saw Ethan Gold, an elite trainer in this new reality as well and had apparently not been overwritten in any way, appear before him for battling and lose rapidly, even with dark types at their disposal and another legend. Lugia was powerful, powerful enough to pose quite a threat to even Mewtwo. But it took little time for Red to pinpoint weaknesses, repetitive actions, and to understand exactly what strategies Gold was using. He did not know initially what typing Lugia had, but it did not take long for him to realize what to do.

"Shadow ball."

Psychic. It seemed like water/flying, but it wasn't.

The ghost move sent it falling to the ground, he internally smirked, before feeling agitated, remembering he couldn't even smirk on his own face right now. That was annoying.

Lance's dragons were powerful, but as Mewtwo remembered how to regenerate, stood no chance. They simply blasted straight through Indigo Plateau's defenses and champions.

Then, suddenly, just as Red felt the world stood no chance, he felt himself being let go, falling to his knees to survey the devastation, blinking.

{1 hour, 23 minutes, and 46.8 seconds. That was how long you held me in that damn ball.} he heard Mewtwo echo in his head, and laughed aloud. He had been held under their control for exactly that long. Why, Mew, he hadn't known they'd been counting! But right after laughing, he stopped, staring at the ground, and felt terrible inside. His brief good mood drained completely.

Even if he was free, what did it matter? It was all gone. Everything was gone. Pikachu... he reached a hand up, shocked to find dampness in his eyes. He could not remember the last time he'd cried for anything. Mewtwo landed on the ground before him, gazing, knowing, leaving Red feeling terribly bare and weak. He couldn't even cry without being alone, without them shifting through his head. They were merciless.

No, not completely merciless. They would have simply destroyed the world, then, rather than let it continue to exist, although that could perhaps be attributed to sanity more than mercy. A dead world did no one any real good.

"Who are you?" he heard someone ask, daring to come up to him after he had, out of the blue, seemed to have destroyed a gym, killed several people with a rogue pokemon, and defeated the most powerful trainers of Kanto and Johto combined.

He stood up. "Red." The color he could never see. Why it defined him, he would never know. What quality did it have that matched him?

"What do you want?"

Nothing. Everything. His fists clenched. This was the cruelest of jokes, and he was the saddest joke of all. He defeated Gold at last, but for what? He had defeated Arceus, but for what? He had told himself, had said he would stop destroying, that he would change, but he hadn't managed to at all. He'd created nothing.

Then he remembered the plan he'd wanted to put into affect. The question he had wanted to ask Arceus, but hadn't quite had words for. The closest he had to it was, 'How do you make a region?'. He thought maybe he had an answer. An answer for what you could do with all that power.

"I want folk to listen." Red rarely spoke, generally only going for the essentials. He would not speak twice. He was not sure if the other person even heard.

They, a Nurse Joy, looked frightened. "I'll listen."

"Grass and fire pokemon. You will need lots of them, the kind that can learn Sunny Day and Rain Dance..." he began, a plan growing in his mind. Soon, others cautiously approached him, finding him no longer violent, and suddenly, it was all he could do to stop himself from pouring out word upon word. Telling about the Rockets, which had been permanently stopped, telling how to grow crops in frigid cold, telling about how he had come from a little place called Pallet Town, and had wanted to challenge the world...

.-

So much unused land in the world. He had traveled the most desolate regions in the world. But no longer.

Now before him stared a paradise.

Pokemon could do so much. Change the weather, and you can change the climate as well. Level a mountain, and you could build a road or a town there. Rise land from out of the sea, and water would get displaced to somewhere else, but do it carefully enough and little enough, and you could control where that water would go.

And pokemon could make miracles happen. Train a pokemon enough, and it can withstand the toughest of conditions. It can even survive its opposing element, at least for a time. And with the genetic engineering knowledge in Mewtwo's brain, they could modify real plants to be more like pokemon ones, and make food that could thrive anywhere. With water pokemon, they could build cities under the sea.

Johto bowed to him, frighteningly easy. They had always been of a slightly softer temper than their Kanto cousins, but even Kanto was eerily silent, baffled and caught completely offguard by what had just happened. No one knew what to think. He left Hoenn and the other regions alone (Sinnoh he would not touch if paid to and with a ten foot pole), but some of the other regions, they were not certain if that was a good thing or a bad thing, considering what he did and accomplished in such a brief time, railroading over everyone while they were still in shock and getting on their good sides before they could figure out what exactly about him to cry rebellion against. He did not try to assert himself as the new champion, or ruler; he didn't call himself anything. Some refused to listen to him; he just gave them the exact same sentiment, not listening to them. As was said, he railroaded them into change. Trainers did challenge him, but Mewtwo, when he could spare a brief moment from grand projects, could and would crush them. Mewtwo was a dominating personality, and was vicious; he wanted to be boss, and he tended to view himself as superior to everyone and everything. It took every bit of Red's personality and charisma to temper that, to make the other view him as an equal, and even then he had to spend time pandering to the clone subtly, ensuring they were, for lack of better words, too entertained to spend too much time brooding on things like destroying everyone in a fit of pique because the nearby drugstore didn't have his favorite flavored toothpaste. Of course, being who they were, even working on ambitious scientific projects and moving mountains left them enough time within the microseconds to ponder all of existence and all that fuss. It was, frankly, a bit terrifying seeing Mew's version of things every once in awhile when problems arose and Red couldn't fix them quickly enough. They took great pleasure in literal obliteration, and in the fear most people grew to develop of them. Folk frankly wondered how Red could do it, and some mistakenly thought he was the master and blamed him for anything. After all, that tended to be the human-pokemon relationship these days. That changed a bit, however. Greater free choice by pokemon was encouraged quietly while far more dramatic things happened.

The world changed in an eye blink.

Why it hadn't happened before, that was easy. Prodigies like Red used to be much rarer, and legendary level pokemon were allowed to be more inactive in the world for longer stretches of time. The world was dominated by monsters that could fit in your pocket; hardly a safe place for centuries or one of luxury. Yet, now it was at least safe enough that children at young age could be sent out to train them without all dying. It had only been that way for about a century, though that time seemed so long ago now.

It was hard to think there had once not been a pokeball. But Red could control pokemon even without one; the first he had done so with had been Pikachu. And that was what prodigies like him had been used for, way back in time. They had not gone to waste; they had been spread thin, protecting humanity. When they had gone idle, all too often, they changed the world drastically even though it was much, much harder to get powerful pokemon. Kingdoms rose and fell. Red was simply following history's pattern, just with far less ruckus and with far more degree. He didn't care for noise.

One day, he met a young man named Ash Ketchum, a stupid, good-hearted boy with a pikachu from Pallet Town who looked eerily like him and wore identical clothes to an old set he once had. It was painful. Staring at Pikachu, seeing her, no, him, for they were male in this new reality, that was the most, but also seeing the distrust in their eyes and the fondness for another. It nearly tore him to pieces, and when Ash challenged him, he merely shook his head, and let Sandslash take the battle since they vigorously wanted to, walking away. Hardest of all was the boy's condemnation. _Why did you kill the rockets?_

They were one of the only ones that asked.

_He just shook his head. Despite what it seemed like, he had not all the answers.  
_

.-

He was alone again.

He looked at his reflection in the spray of the sea, transient and brief before being swallowed by the waves again and again. Red was far, far too young, he thought, to feel and seem so old, and to wonder yet again what to do with his life, and where the next challenge would be. The world had learned from him, and didn't really need him. He had duties now, but…

But then, he realized, this was life, and he was simply far too successful at times for his own good. Sometimes, it would have been better if he had failed.

Like Ash often did?

Perhaps. Red found he didn't care.

He would seek challenge, until it rotted out his very bones, and cut out everything from all around him, ash to ash.

Mew approached him, and he glanced up.

"I've thought of something else we can do." He didn't know if he'd thought, or spoke it, and it didn't matter any more. "We can go to the moon, and reach for the sky."

{We can, Red.}

…

{Do you want to take over the world? That would be the biggest challenge of all. We could do it, you know.}

You mean officially? No thanks, he laughed. Some things were too easy! And could you imagine the paperwork? Too many already bowed down to the very mention of his name, but it was nothing official. He had left before that could happen. No...

Let us grab the universe instead.

An old statue lay inscribed, cobwebbed;

'Here Lies Red;  
He did something,  
And he paid for it.  
Thank you.'.


End file.
